The Inca Prophecy

by Adrian D'hagé

  Deep in thought, Felici stared across the Piazza San Pietro towards the 300-year-old columns of Bernini’s Colonnade. Dr Rossi would shortly provide him with a private report on the pontiff’s health, and the prognosis would determine Felici’s next step in his quest for ultimate control. Monsignor Lorenzo de Luca of the Holy Alliance was scheduled after Rossi, and that meeting was equally critical. Felici fingered the large diamond-encrusted ruby in the centre of a gold pectoral cross that was suspended from a heavy gold chain over his scarlet silk sash. So far, he’d managed to keep the cross’s provenance quiet, but if it ever became public, Felici knew he was finished. Felici’s father, Signor Alberto Felici, had enabled several top-ranking Nazis to evade the Allied advance into Germany by disguising them as priests and spiriting them down what became known as the Vatican Ratline. Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon, Adolf Eichmann, the Master of Death, Josef Mengele of Auschwitz and a host of others had escaped to Central and South America. The gold cross had been a gift to Felici’s father from one of the escapees, the commandant of the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, Karl von Heißen.

  Von Heißen, Felici knew, had been personally selected by Himmler to head one of the least known but most brutal facilitations of the Final Solution. But von Heißen would have been just another stitch in the tapestry of the Holocaust had the German SS officer not kept meticulous diaries. The Church had provided von Heißen with a new identity as Father Hernandez and assigned him to the little parish of San Pedro on the shores of Lake Atitlán in Guatemala. Von Heißen was now in his eighties, and despite Felici’s threats to expose him, he still stubbornly refused to hand over the diaries, intimating in turn he would make them public if Felici carried out his threat. Felici was convinced he would soon have to take more drastic steps. His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the heavy office doors.

  ‘Dr Rossi is here, Eminence,’ announced Felici’s private secretary, Father Cordona.

  ‘Doctor. How good to see you again,’ Felici said urbanely, clasping the papal physician’s hand in both of his and offering one of the deep-blue velvet couches that graced one corner of his office. ‘Coffee? Tea?’

  ‘No, thank you, Eminence,’ Rossi replied, lowering his tall, angular form on to the couch. ‘I won’t keep you, but I thought you ought to know the operation has been a success … for now.’

  ‘For now?’

  ‘For now. The tumour was the size of an olive and although I’ve taken as much of the surrounding tissue as I could, as I said, this is an aggressive cancer and the pontiff will require follow-up treatment.’

  ‘Hospitalisation?’ Felici asked, his thoughts immediately turning to how the pontiff’s condition might be kept from the wider world.

  Rossi, well versed in Vatican intrigue, smiled wanly. ‘No. The treatment is not pleasant, but it’s relatively straightforward. We insert a tube into the bladder and pump in Bacille Calmette-Guérin, a bacterium used in tuberculosis vaccines. In this case, it’s designed to boost the immune system. It will mean the pontiff is out of action for one day a week for six weeks, but we can do it in the papal apartments.’

  ‘And the prognosis?’ Felici asked matter-of-factly.

  Dr Rossi considered his answer before replying. ‘Normally there is a reasonable chance of a cure, and it’s possible His Holiness may go into remission for several years. On the other hand, with the pontiff’s advanced age …’

  ‘How do we monitor his progress?’

  ‘We’ll carry out cytology every three months. Any cancer cells in the bladder tend to flake off, so they’ll show up in urine tests.’

  ‘Good,’ Felici said, thinking out loud. ‘For the moment this can all be put down to routine check-ups.’

  ‘And the Curia, Eminence?’ Rossi asked. ‘The other cardinals may be a little put out if we keep them, come si dice … how do you say it? Out of the loop?’

  Felici masked his irritation. ‘Unfortunately, Doctor, the Curia leaks like a sieve. You handle His Holiness’s condition, and I will handle the media and the Curia. I’ll have a draft media release sent over and I’d appreciate your comment.’ Felici stood and offered Rossi his hand. ‘Thank you so much for coming,’ he said, showing him to the door.

  Felici buzzed for his private secretary. Father Cordona appeared almost immediately. ‘Eminence?’

  ‘I’d like a list of every foreign cardinal visiting Rome over the next few weeks, together with the names of anyone else in their delegations, the purpose of their visit, and their program while they’re here.’

  ‘Certainly, Eminence. Monsignor de Luca is waiting.’

  ‘Show him in.’

  Father Cordona ushered in the head of the Holy Alliance and closed the heavy double doors behind him.

  ‘Have a seat, Monsignor,’ Felici said, offering the hard-backed chair in front of his desk, his usual urbane manner replaced by an icy determination to get to the bottom of the cipher. ‘So … what do you have for me?’

  ‘Not a lot, I’m afraid, Eminence,’ de Luca replied, extracting a crimson file from his soft leather briefcase. ‘This particular code or cipher is like no other we’ve ever seen.’ The greying Jesuit had been the head of the Holy Alliance for nearly ten years, carrying on a tradition of Vatican spymasters that had been central to the papacy and the Holy City for centuries.

  ‘Code or cipher? There’s a difference?’

  ‘Ciphers are mostly focused on a single letter that will stand for another letter or number, Eminence. Codes, on the other hand, can stand for a single letter or a symbol or even a paragraph. The ancient Egyptians and Chinese used simple substitution codes, as did the Hebrews when they wrote the book of Jeremiah. But that was schoolboy stuff, where the alphabet was reversed and Z stood for A and Y stood for B, or where one alphabet is superimposed on another, but out of sync by a number of spaces, so Z might stand for D and so on. The Inca, however, left no written documents. We’ve assumed the friars who were with the conquistadors transcribed these documents from an oral history, but even allowing for a much greater degree of sophistication on the part of the Inca, our most powerful computer programs haven’t been able to unravel the cipher.’

  ‘There’s no key?’

  De Luca shook his head. ‘Not that we can find, and we’ve compared the Inca to other tracts and beliefs such as Buddhism, Shinto, Taoism, the Jewish Kabbalah …’

  Felici wrinkled his nose in disgust. There was only one religion, one true faith, and the rest he held as heresy.

  ‘Leaving aside the Kabbalah,’ the Vatican spymaster continued, conscious of the cardinal’s annoyance, ‘we’ve made other comparisons. For example, there’s a mathematical system in the Hebrew writings known as Gematria, where every letter in the Hebrew alphabet is assigned a number. It’s complex, but in essence, where the letters of different words add up to the same number, a hidden connection between the words can be revealed, but this does not appear to apply to the Inca encryption.’

  ‘I’m not interested in what doesn’t apply. I want this code … cipher … whatever it is solved,’ Felici demanded irritably.

  ‘I understand, Eminence.’

  ‘Which brings me to a related issue. You’re aware that when we acquired the cipher and the Inca prophecy, the documents were accompanied by a crystal skull?’

  Monsignor de Luca nodded. ‘Yes, although I’ve never had the privilege of viewing it, Eminence.’

  ‘Viewing it is not important, Monsignor,’ Felici snapped. ‘Last week I had a discussion with Professor Macchiarolo from the National Museum of Rome. He tells me that in addition to the Inca crystal skull that’s already in our possession, there are two others. I want them found before they’re discovered by anyone else.’

  De Luca remained devoid of expression, a result of years of experience in espionage. ‘That will require considerable resources, Eminence. And possibly the approval of Cardinal Sabatani.’ Technically, the Vatican’s intelligence and counter-espionage services came under the jurisdiction
of the Cardinal Secretary of State.

  ‘Any resources you require will be met by my office, Monsignor,’ Felici replied icily. ‘The operation to recover the crystal skulls is to be assigned the codename Apollo. Other than your most trusted staff, no one else is to be cleared into the Apollo compartment, and that includes the Secretary of State.’ The codename had been chosen for a reason. Felici had long been scornful of the Ancient Greek priestess known as the Oracle of Delphi, whose prophecies were said to have been inspired by the Greek god Apollo – prophecies that were potentially damaging to the Church.

  De Luca remained inscrutable. He knew better than anyone the fierce rivalry that had erupted when the liberal, widely read and well-respected Sabatani had been preferred over Felici for the second most powerful position in the Holy See.

  Felici reached towards his in-tray and extracted another crimson file, embossed with his gold coat of arms. ‘This file is normally housed in the secret archives. It contains all the information we have available on the Inca skull, as well as a report on the Mitchell-Hedges skull.’

  ‘That is not one of the three you’re searching for, Eminence?’

  Felici shook his head. ‘The Mitchell-Hedges skull is Maya, not Inca, and it is very well known. It was discovered in 1924 by Anna Mitchell-Hedges, the adopted daughter of a British explorer. That said, it may provide some clues. Sister Bridget has also typed up a report on my meeting with Professor Macchiarolo.’

  ‘Sister Bridget is aware of what we’re doing?’ de Luca asked, taken aback.

  ‘She’s a member of my trusted staff, Monsignor. As such, she is cleared to have access to Apollo. The other person you may find useful is Monsignor Matthias Jennings, a Jesuit like yourself. You may have heard of him?’

  ‘I’m not familiar with the name, Eminence,’ de Luca lied. He knew the man – and he also knew that if the sexual proclivities of the arrogant Jesuit priest-turned-archaeologist ever surfaced, the scandal would swamp the Vatican, and all those who had protected Jennings.

  Felici reached for one of two files he kept on Monsignor Jennings and handed de Luca the sanitised version. ‘His details are in this file. He’s currently serving in Guatemala City, but I will arrange for him to be posted to Lima as soon as you need him.’

  ‘I’ll let you know, Eminence, but I’ll need to do some research first,’ de Luca said. The way things were going, it might be a long time before he needed any help from someone like Jennings, if at all.

  ‘Of course. Do you have any questions, Monsignor?’

  ‘Just one, Eminence. It might help if I knew why these missing skulls are so important. Or perhaps that is explained in the files?’

  ‘It is sufficient to know that anything that threatens the uniqueness of Christ threatens the Church itself. I expect this to have the highest priority,’ Felici emphasised, getting to his feet.

  After Monsignor de Luca had left, Felici opened the second file he kept on Jennings and refreshed his memory on the reports he’d received. Satisfied there was more than enough to keep the monsignor in line, he moved to the rear wall of his office, his Italian leather shoes sinking into the rich pile of the crimson carpet. He reached towards St Jerome, Leonardo da Vinci’s priceless oil on wood, on loan from the Vatican’s Pinacoteca. In 393 AD, St Jerome had exhorted that ‘a woman should be submissive to a man. She should remain silent, and never be permitted to teach.’ Of all the saints, Jerome was Felici’s favourite. Felici swung the painting aside, dialled the combination of his wall safe and returned the file.

  Felici crossed to the palace windows, contemplating how to manage his run for the papacy. It would need subtlety. Overt canvassing of voting blocs ran the risk of alienating the powerful Curia, but at the same time, he was determined his arch-rival, the Secretary of State, Cardinal Sabatani, be neutralised.

  Chapter 7

  Farid Jafari felt vulnerable and alone. A biting wind was blowing off the Potomac and the record snows of the previous week were still hugging the ground, albeit reduced to dirty clumps of ice. Short and swarthy, Jafari fitted the media’s stereotypical description of ‘a man of Middle Eastern appearance’, and he felt distinctly uncomfortable in the capital of a country his superiors routinely referred to as ‘the infidel’. Tehran’s traffic was more chaotic, he thought, as he walked briskly down 19th Street towards M Street, but at least Tehran was familiar territory. And now, Jafari was sure he was being followed.

  Forcing himself to remain calm, Jafari tried to remember the instructions he’d been given for situations like this. He waited until the red numbers on the pedestrian intersection lights counted down the last couple of seconds before dashing across 19th Street. The tall, muscular man in the black overcoat stayed on the other side. Perhaps he wasn’t being followed at all, Jafari thought, but then the man picked a break in the traffic and crossed to his side of the road. Jafari abruptly turned left into L Street and then did a U-turn and doubled back. The man in the overcoat stopped, entered an office block and perused the occupant directory in the foyer. Jafari again turned down 19th Street just as the 929 bus pulled up at the stop on the corner. Jafari boarded, but the man boarded behind him and Jafari allowed him to pass. As the driver was about to pull out, Jafari leaned towards him.

  ‘Sorry … wrong bus. Very sorry …’

  The driver shrugged, re-opened the door and Jafari leapt on to the sidewalk. He didn’t look back into the bus, but he could almost feel the frustration of the man in the dark overcoat as the bus disappeared down 19th Street. Jafari doubled back along L Street and down Connecticut Avenue to the Farragut North Metro. As instructed, he’d memorised the lines, and he made the change to the Orange Line without incident. Fifteen minutes later he alighted at the Foggy Bottom platform and took the escalators to the intersection of I Street and 23rd, emerging outside the George Washington University Hospital. The traffic was lighter here, and Jafari searched the streets. There was no sign of the man in the dark overcoat. He hailed a cab for the short ride past the Saudi Embassy and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to the Watergate complex.

  The four-hectare complex on the banks of the Potomac River took its name from the western steps of the nearby Lincoln Memorial, which had originally been designed as a landing platform for dignitaries arriving by river from nearby Virginia. The five horseshoe-shaped buildings included office blocks and apartment blocks, many of the latter tenanted by congressmen and women, and a hotel–office complex that had been the scene of the third-rate burglary into the offices of the Democratic National Committee, leading to the eventual downfall of the Nixon presidency.

  O’Connor was waiting for Jafari in one of the CIA’s safe apartments at Watergate, this one with sweeping views past the Potomac’s Key Bridge to the north-west, and across Theodore Roosevelt Island towards Arlington National Cemetery and the Pentagon to the south.

  After introductions were made, both men took a seat on the couch. ‘You did very well today,’ O’Connor congratulated Jafari with a grin. ‘You managed to throw off one of our most experienced operators … who right now is pretty pissed.’

  Jafari nodded nervously, somewhat relieved. He had been tailed – by the CIA.

  ‘How do you feel about going back to Iran?’ O’Connor asked, probing for any signs of weakness in his latest charge. O’Connor had run agents out of Moscow, Beijing and the Middle East, but they had been much more experienced than Jafari and there had been more time to train them. Although they’d only just met, O’Connor was far from sure Jafari was up to the task. He wanted to be convinced.

  ‘I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to get my country back,’ Jafari replied. His voice was gravelly, and hinted at controlled anger. ‘Ayatollah Khomeini was very strident in his criticism of the Shah. We loved him for that – everyone hated the Shah and his secret police. But when the revolution gave the ayatollahs control, they were just as brutal in repressing opposition. In the months after Khomeini seized power, almost 10 000 Iranians were murdered.
We thought we would finally get democracy with the ousting of the American puppet,’ Jafari added, ‘but instead, we got another dictator in the robes of a cleric.’

  O’Connor listened as Jafari vented his anger against the unrestrained power of the ulema, the religious scholars. ‘And now it’s Khamenei. The Supreme Leader has absolute power, and as you know, the Council of Guardians underneath him decide who can run for parliament and who can run for president.’

  ‘And anyone who doesn’t conform to the Ayatollah’s views is not allowed to run.’ It was a statement, not a question. O’Connor had studied Iran for years.

  ‘They have to conform to the views of the Council as well. Khomeini’s original revolution has been taken over by the fanatics who demand absolute loyalty to an Islamic government, a government that’s totally out of touch with the people,’ Jafari fumed. ‘None of us wanted to be dominated by the West, or by the Communist East, but we don’t want hardline fundamentalist Islam either.’

  ‘I imagine a lot of Iranians – especially women – feel the same way,’ O’Connor mused.

  Jafari laughed, but it held no mirth. ‘Ahmadinejad wants separate lifts and sidewalks, designated for men only and women only. Over a thousand Iranians applied to run in the 2005 presidential election, and the Council of Guardians approved just seven candidates – all men. We might have overthrown the Shah, but as a result we’re back in the dark ages.’